Did an Edelman Employee Try to Bribe a Blogger for Wal-Mart?
From The Consumerist:
Earlier this summer, we did an interview with the No Respect! podcast. They asked us about The Consumerist in general and Walmart in particular. Especially of interest was our meeting with Mike Krempasksy (above, center, tie), who runs the Walmart blog war team at Edelman PR. After a series of disapariging posts, Mike wanted to meet up with us for drinks. He opened the meeting with, “This is all off the record.” The next thing out of his mouth was, “What can we do to get you to stop writing about our companies?”
[Emphasis added]
Rita Desai at the Bivings Report (which is where I first found this tale), tries to be kind:
I’d be interested in knowing what Edelman thought that they could do for Consumerist. The immediate thought is, as one commenter mentioned, a briefcase full of cash. But maybe Krempansky meant to ask them for consulting advice. Maybe what Krempansky really meant was, “How can we be a better Wal-Mart for consumers and its employees?” or maybe he wanted Ben [Popken of The Consumerist] to be his Jerry Maguire (“Help me help you”) and it just came out wrong.
Somehow I doubt it. When has Wal-Mart actually listened to anybody whose actually criticized it? They bring in outside groups for cover; they don’t seek out the people who criticize them like Whole Foods did when the animal rights folks had them in their sites.
I am certainly in no position to ascertain whether Krempansky was offering cash, but don’t you think someone from the press ought to ask him on the record ASAP? If this is true, it deserves to be a national scandal.
Update: Mike responds (really quickly) to my cross-post at Kos:
The furthest thing from it, and no one has to ask me on the record.
I invited Ben out for a drink. In the interest in having a candid conversation, I asked him if we could have an off the record chat. He agreed. (since I invited him, I offered to buy him a beer. he declined. no biggie.)
What I “offered” him was the chance to work together (and an apology for a dumb email one of my staff sent to him earlier). To help consumerist readers actually…well, solve consumer complaints. He never took me up on that offer. That’s his choice, too.
Just as any conversation that I’ve had with folks here on DailyKos – private means private, and committments are worth keeping. Apparently a novel concept to some.
And this isn’t about what “came out wrong” – it’s simply about someone not working real hard to be truthful, or balanced, or whatever. Was it the right wing guy? Or the guy who had a conversation in confidence and then ignored that promise?
I guess this constitutes our first contact with Edelman! Will there be more? I think I speak for all of us here at The Writing on the Wal that we would welcome that, and we will keep it confidential until mutually acknowledged otherwise.
Update #2: Ben Popken of The Consumerist responds to Krempasky [Do I have it right now?] in the comments below.
Nothing tickles me more than seeing stuff like this about PR people, especially the ‘Better Paid Critics’ at Edelman PR. The Consumerist actually questions whether PR people are actually human. I suspect that most anti-Wal-Mart blogs get at least weekly visits from Edelman’s paid Wal-Mart supporters.
You can find out more about the “saint of the Blogosphere” here at PoliticsOnline or you can go to Krempasky.com and read about Mike talking about himself.
Sorry to get Mike’s last name wrong. That’s the last name used on his email address.
“I invited Ben out for a drink. In the interest in having a candid conversation, I asked him if we could have an off the record chat. He agreed. (since I invited him, I offered to buy him a beer. he declined. no biggie.)”
I walked into the bar. After initial greeting he said, “This is all off the record.” Being a cowed novice, I said, “Okay…”
“What I “offered†him was the chance to work together (and an apology for a dumb email one of my staff sent to him earlier). To help consumerist readers actually…well, solve consumer complaints. He never took me up on that offer. That’s his choice, too.”
The second thing he said was, “What can we do to get you to stop writing about our companies?” Among the things offered later in the conversation was behind the scenes access, tour of the factory type things. I was the one who said my goals for The Consumerist were to see more complainants issues resolved, rather than merely voiced. If Krempanksy is so interested in solving customer’s complaints, there’s nothing stopping him from setting up an RSS feed and contacting us with help. It’s not our job to pitch them to his inbox.
“And this isn’t about what “came out wrong” – it’s simply about someone not working real hard to be truthful, or balanced, or whatever. Was it the right wing guy? Or the guy who had a conversation in confidence and then ignored that promise?”
Actually, neither of them are the story. The story is that an agent of Walmart forcefully declared an “off-the record conversation” so as to protect his influence wheedling from public scrutiny.
Hello – I am Scott Womack, host of the No Respect podcast, in which Ben revealed what Mike was doing.
Ben and I are investigative journalists. Our whole mission (among other things) is to out shills like Mike covering butt for Mega-Harmful corporations like Wal-Mart, as yet another example of how corporations “don’t play fair” with consumers in society.
If you want to go into denial-mode and disagree with that last statement there are facts upon facts on Wal-Mart abuses on my podcast show at http://no-respect.blogspot.com, and Ben’s site, not to mention tons of other blogs and websites (www.wakeupwalmart.com, http://www.walmartwatch.com, Robert Greenwald’s film Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price), etc. Corporations don’ t get the biggest class action suit in history, and many dedicated websites tracking their actions for treating people fairly.
Mike’s focus on “oh, you didn’t play nice and keep my PR Spin-Doctor practices and Wal-Mart’s backroom practices secret” is laughable at best. A cheap effort to distract from yet another Wal-Mart practice – hiring shills like him to spin and manipulate the public, and in this case, intimidate the truth-tellers.
Well, investigative journalists, like undercover cops, like whistle-blowers bring the truth to the public.
As I said in a post on consumerist this morning, to micro-examine the part of that process that “gets us access” to what is going on and whine “ewwww, that’s LYING”, in full frontal ignorance of the real harm being exposed, is denial.
People like Ben and I are not concerned, and will never be concerned with what shills, or professional PR liars say about us or anything else, except to the degree they cover things up and make things worse in the public sphere. Their very content is paid for, ergo, not to be trusted, whether on their own site, on this one, or anywhere else in the public sphere. I bring the truth in my spare time, because I care, I believe the public deserves better than this, not because I am paid to. I’d trust an independent social activist / journalist to deliver the truth over a paid PR man ANY day.
Final Reality Check: A real arbitrator doesn’t come “offering access in exchange for silence”. A real arbitrator contacts conflicting parties and brings it to a courtroom or an agreed upon setting and has the legal authority to offer binding decisions to resolve disputes Last time I checked Edelman (Mike’s employer) is NOT an Arbitration firm….their website says “a full service global public relations firm”.
Scott
[...] You might remember the story of Edelman’s Mike Krempasky sitting down with Ben Popken of the Consumerist. Ben offers a blog round-up here. I haven’t the faintest idea what happened during that conversation because I wasn’t there. However, I do know that this post from Krempasky’s blog (that Ben links to) is probably the most disingenuous thing I’ve ever read: [I]t’s remarkable how easy it is to work with someone on the other side of almost any divide. It doesn’t mean you agree, or change your views, or even quell your own passion about a principle. [...]